


That Very Echo

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e10-e11 The Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on,” she says abruptly. “Up. Brought you that crock of chowder you were askin’ about.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Very Echo

He hates the ocean. _Hates_ it, with a loathing that always catches people off guard, because doesn’t he surf? Doesn’t he tote his damned board across galaxies, spending free hours waxing it, meticulously taking care of it even when it’s just an ornament? Isn’t he the one who’s spent the last three years in a city that’s an island, bordered and boundried by nothing but lapping, continuous water?

He always turns the questions away with a smile and a tilt of his head, charming deflection habitual enough to be instinct. The answers aren’t important, anyway.

_“Why the hell are you up there in the middle of nowhere?” Rodney had demanded in the last of his twice-daily phone calls. Sometimes more, if his minions decided to be pushy. “I mean—it’s Nantucket. Oh, wait. _Nantucket_. Isn’t that were Snapple is from or something? Can get you me some?”_

_“You hate Snapple, and it’s Nantucket Nectar’s,” John told him, wearily contemplating short, choppy waves. He couldn’t stay inside, for all he hated being out._

_“Oh, those are too sweet and full of citrus.” Rodney said it like the company was out to get him personally, denying the sweet, sweet juice John couldn’t bear to drink. “Anyway, that still doesn’t explain to me why the hell you’re up in the middle of nowhere. Aren’t you_ cold _? And isn’t it an_ isthmus _?”_

_He’d said the word like it somehow personally offended him, angrier and harsher than before. John knew that meant real emotion, instead of the badly-worn cheerfulness Rodney put on for his own sake. Maybe for John’s, too. “It’s an island, McKay. Aren’t geniuses supposed to know that?”_

_“Like I care about North American geography, and island my shiny diplomas hanging on my shiny, perfectly new lab-office walls. It’s a land-mass surrounded by_ water _, Colonel. If you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, could you at least do it here in Nevada where all you’d see is_ sand? _Also some charming, blandly identical housing that doesn’t break up the monotony at all. Ever.”_

McKay understands. He hates the water, too, and if their reasons started out different, John’s pretty sure they aren’t anymore.

The pebbles at his feet are small and sharp, water-sanded to unexpected points. He kicks them, showering them into cold, dark waves. There are cuts on his feet, skin pale with cold, and he ignores it, just like he has for the past hour.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” he shouts. Bellows, really, his throat raw and aching like it’s not his voice but shards of translucent, crystal-sharp edges that he can read with the tips of his fingers, sight completely superfluous. He misses how smooth they were, etchings made without ever damaging the silken surface. 

“Fuck!” The sound of his own voice echoes back to him, harsh enough that the reverb pounds his skin. “Fuck.”

He sits down heavily. There’s more gravel under his ass, painful through the thin weave of his boxers. His knees stick up in front of him. They’re hairy and knobby and for a second—one precious, precious second—he wants to rip the skin right off of them, see blood and bone spilling down his hairy, skinny calves; to tear deep, long furrows until there is nothing, until he is nothing.

He’s probably drunk. No, strike that: he’s definitely drunk.

“Fuck,” he says a third time, because he likes the word. He likes the way it sounds when he says it, flat and empty, like useless blanks from a weapon never meant to hold them—only live rounds. An empty six pack container flutters against his side. He bats at it wearily, and wishes he’d brought more. Make it a true bender, the kind he hasn’t gone on in years. The kind he thought he outgrew the moment he woke up to find his next assignment was fucking Antarctica.

There’s a path about ten feet from where he’s sitting. His arms are over his knees, watching the waves lap white and frothy against his toes, already cold enough to worry, though he doesn’t. All he needs to do is get onto his feet, walk up the path to the old, one-cabin home that’s all he has of his mother’s family. It’s a legacy of Nantucket wealth gone belly up, until Grandpa took his wife and his daughter and high-tailed it for the South, where at least it was _warm_ in their one-room shack of a home. His mom had always thought of this place with some fondness, though, keeping the deed her father left her no matter how the bills piled up.

It’s the only thing John still owns.

The sudden hiss-pop of a bottle opening makes him lunge, twisting around with a painful grunt, losing his balance until he falls down heavily onto his side, blinking up into the sunlight. A beer is all he sees, green bottle thrust towards him like a peace offering. He takes it, righting himself just enough to reach and then swig without choking on his own backwash.

“Thought you needed that.”

“Hard to be drunk without it,” he acknowledges, tipping the bottle just enough to reach a parody of thanks. He doesn’t spill a drop. 

That was hours ago, back when he was still sober enough to remember the names.

“Is it? You were doin’ well enough before.” The woman who speaks is older than time, her face a wrinkled map of too many years, too much life. Her back is bent, her gait painful and slow, and her eyes are still bright enough to be the stars John once named them. “Johnny-boy, what’d you go and do to yourself this time?”

He doesn’t bother answering. She doesn’t expect it; it’s not why she asked.

_“Christ, haven’t you died yet?” was what he said when his crap rental truck rattled up the gravel drive to her home, not much bigger than his little shack. She was outside, of course. She was only ever inside to cook, and sometimes not even then. He didn’t know what made him take that turn, or worse, get out of the truck entirely, standing there like a fool, wishing he had a hat to doff, to twist in his fingers like a nervous cadet, flushed and wanting approval._

_“And give you the satisfaction?” was her pert reply, not even looking up from the scraggly garden she labored over. Her voice was still like a trumpet, pure and penetrating, for all it cracked with age._

That was two days ago. He still has no idea why he’d let her know he was back and he sure as hell regrets it now. She’s worse than McKay when it comes to being stubborn.

When the silence drags she makes an impatient noise. It’s not a word, of even a string of words, but he’s heard that particular noise all his life and he knows what it means: give her a task to do, a project to work on, and she’ll outlast the end of the world. Provide her with one John Sheppard and she’d rather yank her own teeth out than try for his.

She’s said it so often that she doesn’t _need_ the words anymore.

“Come on,” she says abruptly. “Up. Brought you that crock of chowder you were askin’ about.”

“Not hungry.” Food doesn’t taste right, this side of the ’gate.

 _“I thought the cook called this soup a chowder?” Teyla always looked so expecting as she tiptoed her way through customs far more varied and complex than her own peoples’. She didn’t say it, but John was sure that the thought of_ many different cultures _on one world, covering all of it, still disturbed her. “A seafood base, I believe he said, and a tradition among those who hail from… Boston?”_

_“Trust me,” John said, grinning lazily. “This? Isn’t chowder. I’m a New Englander, the real kind, not from a city. I know what chowder is.”_

_“Oh, please, now you’re from New England?” Rodney snapped, spooning up the thin, pale liquid without hesitation. Real chowder or not, it was hot and filling and tasted pretty good. “Is there any place you’re not from?”_

_“Military brat, McKay,” and something in the way he said it actually got Rodney to turn away from him, mouth a downward slash of dismay. “So, no. There isn’t.”_

Another noise, sharper and no less familiar than the first, jerks his attention back. She’s watching him, eyes narrowed and thoughtful. It’s a terrifying sight, since she’s not only as stubborn as McKay, she’s as smart, too. Her focus is human nature and she can dissect the mind of a boy at fifty paces. The mind of a grown man is probably even easier. 

“You’ll _be_ hungry for what I made you,” she snaps. “Now get _up_ , boy.”

He tells himself it’s habit. That she’s too much like Teyla; that his training runs too deep. He tells himself it’s anything but the real reason as he climbs to his feet with a muttered, “Yes, ma’am,” head down as he sulks his way into the cabin. She follows behind, clucking disapprovingly every step of the way.

It’s warmer inside than it was before. Much warmer, the heater actually working properly instead of the mix of heat and carbon monoxide he’d forced out of it before. It makes his boxers stick to his skin, clammy and colder than he remembers them being a few seconds ago. He ducks into the bathroom, only belatedly realizing that wet, clinging boxers are not the best attire for an old lady. Not that she cares, really—he knows that look she gave him, cackling as she tosses his jeans in afterwards. He’s seen it all his life. It’s easier coming from her, though. To her, a half-naked man is just amusing.

When he exits, wearing jeans with no socks, the stove is on and a pot half his height is slowly coming to a boil, and the smell of fish and food makes his stomach growl. He isn’t hungry, not really, but certain things really _are_ habit, and his response to one sniff of Aunt Ethel’s chowder is the oldest he has. 

Half the six packs are gone from the fridge. John’s honestly not sure if he didn’t drink them all himself, or if she took it away. She’s never been fussy about him drinking, not even when he was underage, but there are certain lines she’s never let him cross. _Don’t drive drunk_ , and if she ever hears of him flying drunk like his father did that one time, she’ll hunt him down and tan his hide, no matter how old he is. _Don’t drink just to get drunk, or at very least, don’t make it a habit._

_Don’t forget to respect what’s made you forget in the first place._

“Sit,” she orders, heading for cabinets John doesn’t know the contents of. His only concern has been the rickety cot that’s better than the widest bed, and how much beer he can fill the refrigerator with. Anything else took too much effort. Two bowls are produced, two spoons and a ladle, and a minute later John’s eating the first thing in two days that hasn’t come out of a bottle.

It’s good. It’s better than good; hot and rich, warming up parts of him he didn’t know were cold. Eating this soup, full of fresh caught animals that wriggled when she put them in the pot, her making those sighing sounds, two parts smug, one part pleased as she tastes her creation beside him—it’s one of the earliest memories he has. He doesn’t want to think that he’s missed this. Missed her.

_“Come on, John,” Elizabeth said, her voice lilting playfully. “There must be something you can tell me about your childhood. Favorite haunts? Catch-phrases your parents always used? My dad had those, including some I don’t think I was ever meant to hear.”_

_She was inviting him to share her laugh—giggle, really, and maybe she’d had a bit too much of the Athosian mead-like brew they were drinking—tucked up in her chair like an overgrown teenager on sleepover night._

_It always surprised him how comfortable it was like this. He shrugged, “Nothing to tell. We hopped around a lot, since my father—” never, ever Dad, “—got transferred so much. No real reason, just that lots of people wanted his skills.” His skills as a micromanager, something John never told anyone. “He wasn’t around a lot. Mom was always working. Doesn’t exactly make a great story to tell.”_

_“Hm.” Reaching across her desk, Elizabeth topped up his half-empty glass and pushed it towards him. “That doesn’t sound very adventurous.”_

_“Oh, I had those, too,” he said, smirk coming easily._

_Of course, that left him wide open when she gave him a look that held nothing of drunkenness, instead the steel and mothering sadness that made her the best damned commander he’d ever worked with—disagreements and all. “Not with them, I bet. I wonder who it was that really raised you, John.”_

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_“Sure you do.” She smiled abruptly, raising her cup towards him in ironic acknowledgement. “Didn’t you tell me you and McKay had found a way to sneak into the commissary? I know it’s odd, but alcohol always gives me the munchies.”_

Her eyes are steady as she watches him. “Drifting again? That’s the second time I’ve seen you.”

John spoons up another mouthful, too big and messy, and it’s the perfect excuse not to acknowledge her. Clams are perfect for that, anyway.

She snorts. “Better men than you’ve tried that on me, Johnny. You think I’m going away?”

No. No, he doesn’t. He knows better than to stop Aunt Ethel, who isn’t his aunt, isn’t really anybody’s aunt, for all the whole area calls her that. She’s McKay’s truly unmovable force, and John’s learned the hard way not to even try. “Fine.” He makes himself smile at her, attempting at pleasant, and knows damn well what a horrible expression it is. “What can I do for you, Aunt Ethel?”

“You remember the time you and your mother came up?” She’s eating too, dainty little bites with no slurping noises. The bastard daughter of an old tycoon, she’d remembered her deportment lessons, even if grammar was beyond her. “When you brought that surfboard of yours and your ma sat on the beach and watched you try to surf the bay?”

It’s not one of his fonder memories, but a clear one. While it is possible to surf off the coast of Nantucket, it only works certain times of year and _especially_ only on the ocean side. John hadn’t cared about that, though, too proud of the board he’d saved up for and wanting to impress a mother who tried so hard to share with her son. 

The chemo sapped her faster than the cancer ever did.

“I remember.”

“You remember me sitting with your ma, watching you play stag for us?”

The sky had been dark, billowing round balls of clouds that slipped by faster than he could make shapes in them. Not stormy, no, but not exactly weather to go outside and play in. His mother had worn a shawl, something she’d knitted herself, all crazy blues and greens with tiny, flickering hints of silver.

His father had it buried with her.

Of all the things he’s done that John can’t forgive, that still tops the list.

“I remember that too, Aunt. Your point?” He finishes his bowl and goes back for seconds. He takes her bowl, too, courteously refilling hers first with a grace he doesn’t feel. “Or is this finally proof that you know you’re senile?” The joke falls flat and his voice sounds all wrong. It hurts to needle Aunt Ethel, but she’s not good with boundaries and he came here to reestablish them. Not have them destroyed by a cranky old woman.

He could’ve gone to McKay for that.

Ethel just smirks at him. “Your ma, while we were sitting on the beach, she looked at me and said, ‘Aunt Ethel, John hates the ocean. He hates swimming, only reason he learned was because his father made him. You put salt in a glass and the only way you’ll get him to dip his finger in is a direct order or punishment’.”

His knuckles are white on the edges of the bowl, little lines of pink shot through them. “My mother never spoke like that.”

“Artistic license,” Aunt Ethel shoots back, “and don’t be pert with me, Johnny-boy.” She’s the only one to get away with calling him that, and she knows it. “Point is, she didn’t understand why you were in the water when everybody knew you hated it.”

He looks at her, hard and steady, until she finally meets his eyes. “We screwed up. We helped out some nice people who turned out to be the rightful owners of where we were living, and they said thanks by tossing us out. So now I’ve got the same brass who wanted me thrown in Leavenworth offering me everything I ever wanted. And I’d rather spit in their faces than say yes to any of it.”

She nods. It’s a slow, certain kind of nod, like he’s just confirmed something profound for her. He doesn’t bother asking, because Ethel’ll tell him. She always does. She’ll keep secrets better than Atlantis’ somber walls, but heaven forefend she lets you languish without her wisdom. 

He takes another bite of chowder. It’s lukewarm now and not as good as before.

“I told your ma, ‘Stop worrying about whether he likes the water or not. That boy never does anything he doesn’t want to do, and he never will. He’s a stubborn old cuss, just like we are. Got our blood in him, don’t he? The better question is who _does_ love the water—and why he never goes out into the ocean. Only the bay’.” 

Ethel is the only person John’s gone over the river and through the dale for, no matter that his father’s mother lived until John was nearly twenty. Ethel’s the one who sent him presents and rapped his knuckles, the one whose home he summered at. She’s the first person he told his successes to after his parents, the first and often only person he tells his failures to. She’s the only family he has left, for all there’s not a drop of shared blood between them.

She’s why he came up here, no matter how much he tells himself that’s not true.

_Helia found him wandering the halls. He should’ve been supervising, but Lorne never grumbled when John gave him the hard jobs. This wasn’t something he wanted to share. “Can I help you, ma’am?”_

_“You are angry with us.”_

_“Kinda hard to be, since this is your home. Sorry we didn’t take better care of it.” He was being flippant and cruel and it was all he could do not to be violent, as well._

_Helia’s face was as gold-touched as her hair, eyes solemn as she studied him. “It is different for us, I think.”_

_“Yeah? How’s that?” Tension made him vibrate. He fisted his hands and tucked them behind his back._

_Her touch to his shoulder physically hurt, and only reaching out to the wall—warm and giving under his fingers, as familiar as his own skin—kept him from hitting her. “We forget that for us, it has not been ten thousand years. I am truly sorry, John Sheppard.”_

_“Does your kind do anything but lie?” was the last thing he ever said within Atlantis._

“Who loves the ocean, Johnny-boy?” Aunt Ethel’s asking him. “Who?”

“Mom. Mom di—” he catches her look and clears his throat, “—does.”

She nods again, case closed, bargain sealed. “You’ll have calls to make, I expect. And I expect my soup pot to shine when I get it back, too. There’s containers under the sink and see you eat all of that. You’ve lost weight you can’t afford. How a tubby boy like you used to be grew up a skinny, no-assed rake, I’ll never understand.” She sees herself out, patting his shoulder with a too-heavy hand.

John stays at the table for a long time, dragging his spoon back and forth through the remains of the broth, watching eddies swirl. When he’s clearheaded enough, he gets the soup put away and dutifully cleans the pot until it shines. He works on it for hours, his back aching, knuckles raw from sponging them more than the old, battered metal. He even cleans up the outer edges, working the rust off the handles, undenting the side that’s been caved in for as long as he’s been alive.

Then he goes out to the ocean side, finds a beach that’s not too crowded and wades into water that’s freezing, grey and murky instead of blue and clear, and swims until his fingers and toes feel frostbitten. That night, he sleeps better than he has in days. And when he wakes up, he really does have some calls to make.

“Yes, sir. Sorry it took me so long, sir. I was wondering, about having my own off-world team—is that offer still good?”

It goes as well as he expects. Landry doesn’t know what to do with him, too qualified for anything outside of the SGC and not qualified—trustworthy—enough for any of the higher profile SG teams. But it feels right.

His fingers dial from habit, and the first thing Rodney says to him is, “Well it’s about damned time. You’re coming to visit me before you have to report back for whatever stupid and useless training they’re going to make you go through. I’ll buy the damned tickets, if I have to.”

John doesn’t bother rolling his eyes, just stares at the refrigerator thoughtfully. It’s still full, almost to bursting. There’s enough soup in there for ten people, not just John and—John stops, listening to Rodney get increasingly agitated if his breathing’s anything to go by.

That crazy old bitch, he thinks.

“Hey, Rodney. Do you like clam chowder?”


End file.
